This invention relates generally to a safer, easily accessible, safety enclosure, more particularly to an apparatus for containment and directing inadvertent spontaneous ignition or explosion of pyrotechnic materials during processing such as automobile air bag inflators.
Currently the industry utilizes square or rectangular safety enclosures which have extremely limited access to the production equipment within. Because of the potential reduction in strength that access ports impart, generally very small access ports are provided most of which do not allow much more than an arm into the safety enclosure. Further because of the rectangular shape of the devices in use, they are generally made of substantially heavier material to withstand any potential explosion. Although the devices are built to withstand substantial pressure from an explosion and to contain and direct the blast upward and away from workers and other equipment, its necessary to be able to work on the processing equipment without the requirements of disassembling part of the safety enclosure to do so, which is the case for the current safety enclosures. Users, generally, of pyrotechnic materials limit the amount of materials in the safety enclosure at any one time and this should also be done in keeping with current practices even with the within device. As with any type of hazardous material, the safety limits can be exceeded.
The object of this invention, therefore, is to provide an improved safety enclosure which would still contain and direct upwardly the blast from any spontaneous ignition of a pyrotechnic material being processed within and still having an ease of accessibility to work in the processing equipment when the pyrotechnic material has been removed.
There are various explosion suppressing or containment devices, such as, Hoaglend U.S. Pat. No. 1,086,708, Clark U.S. Pat. No. 2,917,927, Loving U.S. Pat. No. 3,165,916, Boller U.S. Pat. No. 3,721,201, Mullarkey U.S. Pat. No. 3,772,958, Gillis U.S. Pat. No. 4,487,266, and King et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,325,309, all of which are limited either as being extremely bulky, cumbersome, complex, or simply do not provide the protection to individual workers and surrounding equipment and yet allows easy accessibility to production equipment within the apparatus. In fact the cited devices are generally designed for multiple explosive detonations or are so cumbersome that they do not lend themselves to a production line.